Re: Front Springs - YET again.
 

Ok so I've finally got hang of heavier oil and made adjustments to forks:

- Mixed some heavy oil in and increased oil viscosity by approximately 50%, if compared to popular oils it would be going from 10W to 15W.
- Increased preload on emulator from 1 turn to 1.5 turn.
- Decreased air gap (increased oil level) by 20mm, from 100mm to 80mm. Stock is 92mm.

Results: the ride is much firmer. Front end doesn't bottom out any more. Bike also dives less under long hard braking, i believe it's because of increased air gap.

But it's now too harsh over high speed round bumps or dips in the road. There was no problem with those with previous settings. My guess is too much slow speed compression damping?

However small bumps are still ok. The road made of round stones feels ok, where stock suspension was going crazy. So I guess high speed comp damping is ok.

Also I noticed bike runs wide in corners now. Previously steering was neutral. I guess too much slow speed damping/wrong air gap again?

I have measured sag (pushing/pulling then calculating average). Front was 27mm free sag and 40 mm with me on. Rear was 10 mm free and 33mm with me on. I have increased preload on front by 5mm and left the rear at adjuster position #4 . I have read somewhere that bike free sag must be 60-70% of the rider sag. Anyone can comment on these figures?

So I want to increase comfort over wider bumps/dips and prevent bike from running wide, but I don't want to be bottoming out again. Bike has about 25-30% of travel left when braking hard, and I would like to keep it that way.
To do this, if my guesses where true, I need to decrease compression damping, maybe back the emulator off to 1 turn? What about air gap, should I leave it alone or increase/decrease?

Thanks for any comment and suggestions.

Re: Front Springs - YET again.
 

I would leave the air gap standard - and set the emulator to factory settings.

For sag I think k-tech do a guide on their web-site.

Start with factory settings and work slowly from that - making a note of what you do so you can put it back (if necassary).

Re: Front Springs - YET again.
 

Found a nice guide about springs and other stuff:

http://www.peterverdonedesigns.com/springs.htm

Here is quote from there about sag:

SAG -
Front -
Rider Sag - 30-35mm (25-30% of Full Travel)
Free Sag - 15-20mm (60-70% of Rider Sag)
Rear -
Rider Sag - 20-30mm (race), 30-35mm (street) (25-30% of Full Travel)
Free Sag - 5-10mm (extremely light bikes use less) (15-25% of Rider Sag)

So my figures are good I think.

Rich G, as it is now, I don't think I want to increase pre load on the emulator to 2 turns(factory settings), it should make ride even more harsher. But I want to try to back off the air gap to original as you suggested, as I'm having problems on large bumps, where air gap is playing it's role.